Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Channel 5: Where The Misspelling Comes First

Unlike a certain Plattsburgh TV station with its news department this blog doesn't crow every ten minutes how perfect it is.

Yes, I make dumb mistakes, typos and misspellings. But I try to catch stuff through spell check and Google. It takes less than a minute to verify a word or term.

Shouldn't a professional journalist do the same?

If you watch WPTZ-TV/Channel 5 you become overexposed to the same ads being relentlessly recycled about the professionalism and magnificence of its news team. These spots are annoying, not informative. They seem to show up during every commercial break.

Praise my remote control! I hit the MUTE button or change the channel. How many other viewers react the same way? There's a big difference between boosting and boasting.

"Channel 5: Where the news comes first."

Hearing that slogan for the nth time is like water torture: a steady drip burrows a hole into your forehead.

Sometimes two ads vaunting the WPTZ news team are shown in tandem, doubling the amount of vexation.

With such claims one would think Channel 5 wouldn't let the same misspelling repeatedly appear in an online news item. But check out this screencap from the WPTZ web site:

(For larger view click on image.)

Contonement? Phonetically correct but still wrong. If you Google Search the term "contonement" Google tells you that it's "cantonment."

So how did this get by the Magnificent Channel 5 News Professionals?

Admittedly cantonment isn't a common word. Also its pronunciation doesn't match its spelling. But didn't anyone on the crack News 5 team ever read a newspaper article or news release about Pike's Cantonment? Stories about the archeological dig at the site have been in the newspaper. I'm assuming that WPTZ received a news release about the discoveries at Pike's Cantonment with the right spelling.

I also asked a history expert and even consulted the Oxford English Dictionary to be sure that the spelling used by the Channel 5 reporter was indeed incorrect.

In the meantime the news story with the incorrect spelling hasn't been fixed the last time I checked wptz.com before posting this. I might be a "lowly" blogger but I do correct my mistakes. Sorta acting like a professional, ya know?